These are the moments...

...when I know I'm going to miss Blue 1:

When Shaunacy dances to music that isn't there.
When Dylan does math in his head faster than anyone else could.
When we listen to classical or jazz in the van because we can't agree on anything else.
When Lois brings home all the wild animals
When Kevin thanks the van for making it through a yellow light by kissing his fingers and touching them to the ceiling,
When Joey is Jerry. (But not when he's Joe)
When Keke doesn't stop talking.
When everything becomes an innuendo.
When Alyssa has all the answers.
When Shaunacy puts ketchup on everything.
When Joey makes Chili or Breakfast or Spaghetti for dinner because he doesn't know how to make anything else.
When Lois or Alyssa or Shaunacy sing at the top of their lungs.
When Keke just shakes her head in exasperation.
When we listen to Cherry Pie in the van "because it's tradition".
When Kevin bakes brownies. Or bread.
When Dylan won't stop talking about football (even though it drives me crazy).
When we all yell at each other without meaning a single word.

Well, Blue 1, we did it. We've come a long way since October 10th. We had some difficult times, some bumps in the long road, but we stayed strong and made it through. You are all my family now, even if we get on our planes home after graduation and never talk again. These ten months spent with all of you have affected me in ways I probably don't even understand yet. This has certainly been a fascinating experience and I'm happy (yes, really) to have shared it with the seven of you.
Love,
McKinley

How many days?

That's the question out of our mouths most often now. "How many days left?" Shaunacy is usually the one with the ready answer. She doesn't even look up from what she is doing, but says, "20 days."
That's right. I graduate from AmeriCorps NCCC in just 20 days, on July 23rd. I expect everyone to show up for my graduation, it's at 8:30 am, just come to the Pacific Region Campus (that's at 3247 Laurel St, in McClellan, CA), and wear nice clothes please!
Just kidding.

So, I've been a terrible blogger in the past two months. I'm very sorry. Let me catch you up.
After our time at Camp Jones Gulch in La Honda, CA, Blue 1 spent a month in Takilma, OR. We were working with the Takilma Community Association, the Dome School and the Spiral Living Center. I did a LOT of painting that round. Here's the proof:

Creepy clown bean toss thing, before!

Slightly less creepy clown, after!

Sunflowers on a tool shed for an ISP.

Original sketches for the Spiral Living Center trailer.

Finished first side- almost exactly the same as my original sketch.

In progress on the second side- it changed a lot from my sketches!

Almost done, except for the rows of crops.

The team did a huge variety of work in Takilma, from bicycle maintenance to trail work to poison oak removal (not fun) to construction and demolition. We also got to really know the community. That's really the challenge that I have in writing about Takilma- how can I possibly do these people the justice they deserve? Our Project Sponsor, Kate, was just incredible. Her family was so loving and generous- she kept insisting that one of us should use her tub for a bubble bath! And our Site Supervisor Aaron was another member of the team by the end of the round. Here's a picture of him with Shaunacy and Lois.

Everyone that we met in Takilma had a story and something interesting to teach us. While we were there we met a blacksmith who also sailed tall ships, a botanist, a jeweler who had also designed and built her own one room house, and hippies who live off the grid by using solar and hydro power and growing their own food. It is a fascinating community.

We stayed long enough to attend the Takilma Folk Faire and go square dancing...

...and then went back to Sacramento, CA to get ready for my current project!

Blue 1 is now in Fortuna, CA, and working with the California Conservation Corps. It's a pretty interesting setup- we are living with the corps members on their campus but we aren't following the same schedule as they do. They go through rotations of eight days on spike, then four days on center, then eight days on spike, and so on. We have a pretty normal schedule where we work Monday through Friday and come back to center every night. We've been removing invasive species and doing salmon habitat restoration. 

Salmon habitat restoration can look like a lot of different things. In the photo above, we are trying to take that huge log on the right out of the stream, in order to open up a path for spawning salmon. Doing that requires a process called gripping, where a cable is wrapped around the log (you can see it to the right of Joey's head. He's the one in the green helmet.), and that cable is attached to the main line that goes through a grip box. You then pull the handle back and forth on the grip box as quickly and forcefully as you can and it ever so slowly tightens the cables and the log moves out of the water a centimeter at a time but then it gets stuck on every single little thing on its way out so you have to halt the whole process and adjust the cable until it works. It's actually a lot of fun.

Another thing the CCC does is put log structures back in to the water! Sound counterproductive? It actually isn't. They build these log structures in order to give spawning salmon a place to rest on their way upstream, and give fry a place to hide from predators. We spent a week working on these by adding smaller sticks to the logs in order to create more shelter for fry. 

We also got to bring out our rain gear again!

We spent most of the week walking around in the river, so the porch outside of our room soon became the drying area for all our gear each night. This picture wasn't even it at it's worst- at one point there were a couple of pairs of pants out there too. 

One of the invasive plants that we've been working on lately is European Beach Grass. Here's a nice picture of NCCC and CCC members working side by side to remove it! Aww! 

All of us are more than ready to finish this round out and go home. We graduate in 20 days, but I won't be back in Washington for another 23 days- I'm going to New Orleans with Alyssa and Shaunacy right after the program ends! It was just one of those "That wouldn't happen!" ideas that pop up in conversation one day and then end up actually happening. What a crazy life I lead.

A Letter to Camp Jones Gulch

Dear Camp Jones Gulch,
I miss you already. I miss waking up to the sound of the trees moving in the wind and the birds chirping in those trees. I miss going to bed after the heat of a fire built too big for the pit. I miss camp food- Taco Tuesday with it's homemade salsa, the pasta on Meatless Wednesday, and even (sort of) the simplicity of chicken nugget day. I miss hiking everywhere, but specifically I miss the spot up Coyote Hill where the valley is spread out in front of you and camp is invisible but still audible. I will remember that view painted in the dying sunlight.
We had some beautiful times, Jones Gulch. I sang camp songs to you while trimming that oak by the archery range. The team relaxed in the sunlight and dug their fingers into soft grass after a long day of work. We laughed when Lois beat everyone at tetherball, and that laughter made you shrug and smile and settle around us a little tighter. We walked all your ridges, the main road of your spine and the smaller trails like limbs and fingers. We healed you. We found the places that were damaged and we made you strong again.
I'm still not too happy about that tree that nearly fell on us, but I forgive you. It is good to remember our mortality. It is good to remember that you are not human, that you are wild and lawless and that we just find our small ways to tame you, to bend you but not break you.
I think we all found something to wonder about this last month. Whether it was the power of trees or the bite of a lizard or the nature of stars. Thank you for that, Jones Gulch. We hated to say goodbye.
McKinley

 

 

 

 

California Sunshine

Blue 1 is now in La Honda, California, working at YMCA Camp Jones Gulch for the month of April. We'll be blazing trails, maintaining the ropes course, and installing water bars and steps on current trails. It's been just four days and I already love it here. On our first day at Jones Gulch our supervisor, Erik, took us on a tour of the camp. Half of camp is currently occupied by a local Outdoor School program for sixth graders, and in two weeks it will be at capacity with over four hundred students and staff.
So far we've leveled and widened a severely washed out and narrow trail and added steps to another. We also moved about 40 huge railroad ties that were lining a path. Each log was probably a hundred pounds, and had to be carried by at least two people. I have bruised hips now from the wood bouncing against me as we walked. Those logs will but cut in to thirds and then reused as steps for other trails.
We went hiking for PT the other day, starting out down the road toward a path that Erik recommended. Dylan and I found another trail and decided to break off from the group to follow it. We climbed up along a ridge and eventually emerged out of the canopy of redwoods and into the afternoon sun. I could see for miles, past hill after rolling hill. Standing up there with the sun bearing down and a breeze cooling my sweaty face was the most incredible I've felt in a while.
This year has certainly had its ups and downs and hard times, but seeing all of it in the light of the approaching summer puts things in perspective. These last four months of AmeriCorps are going to be the best yet. I can feel it.

The Trek Life

We've settled into life in Washington now. Lois, Keke, Shaunacy and Lindsey claimed the downstairs of the house as theirs, and quickly started calling it "The Cave". Alyssa and I are crammed into a room upstairs, her in a bed and me in a cot held up with the help of a folding chair. It sure is cozy.
Every morning, Joey and Alyssa are up first, making breakfasts of pancakes and eggs and hash browns. I'm next, dragging myself blearily out of bed ten minutes after my alarm goes off... for the second time. Then Lindsey will crawl out of The Cave, pour herself a cup of coffee, and stumble back down the stairs. No one else will emerge until it's almost time to leave for work, and when they do it's a scramble to get everyone in the van, set the security system, and go.

At work today we were pulling up patches of English Ivy. Jake, the horticulturalist, had seen it climbing up some trees in a more forested area of the park. It's an invasive species, so if it had been left alone it would cover all of the trees in the area and eventually kill the forest. For most of the morning we also had a volunteer working with us- an older woman named Gerta. She was raised in England during WW2, but ended up in Eatonville, WA about 30 years ago. She comes and volunteers with NW Trek once a week, and works with Jake.
Jake knows something about almost everything- from almond production to edible plants- and sometimes we all get a little carried away with talking to him. Gerta doesn't like that. As soon as we get to talking and the work slows down, she thinks we're done. So as we were finishing the first patch of ivy and talking passionately about the state of education in the US, she decided to walk back through the forest to the van. She headed off along one of the elk paths and didn't look back.  A little while later the rest of us picked up our bags full of vines and made our way back to the car. Gerta wasn't there. We all went straight into action mode, dropping our trash bags and tools and calling out for her as we searched. She eventually called back and we found her before she wandered off the edge of NW Trek property.
We cleaned out more ivy after Gerta left for the day. Here's a picture of the group with our six bags full of ivy! Shaunacy is holding an old, dying teddy bear that we found in the bushes. Poor thing.

The best part of working at Trek is being around the animals. NW trek is a wildlife park, so there are exhibits of bald eagles, snowy owls, cougars, lynx, black and brown bears, foxes, coyotes, wolverines, fishers, porcupines, badgers... and their famous free range area. It's a huge fenced-in area where elk, deer, moose, mountain goats, bison, and bighorn sheep wander at will. So far we've only worked out there once, to remove an invasive species. We were working in a back corner by the fence so none of them wandered up to us, but Jake says they usually like to come investigate.


We've also done a lot of blackberry removal around the parking lot. There are three types of blackberry in the area- Himalayan, Evergreen, and Trailing. Though Evergreen sounds like it should be the native variety, it isn't- Himalayan and Evergreen blackberry are both invasive species, and Trailing blackberry is the native. We were removing as much of the invasive blackberry as possible, and leaving Trailing blackberry behind. The picture below is Jake with the majority of the blackberry that we pulled in the claw of that... thing. It doesn't look like much, but it is. I have the scratches on my arms to prove it.

A beautiful example of some nasty blackberry roots:

Of all of the work that we've done so far, my favorite wasn't the ivy or blackberry removal, or shoveling substrate into a raccoon exhibit, or even working in free roam area. It was NW Trek's Kids n' Critters event! Kids n' Critters is an annual event for Trek where four kids can come free with each paying adult. Several of us ran craft stations for two of the three days. One of those stations was paper-making! I worked at it the most. Here's a picture of the area that I worked at:

My job was to make the water/plant fiber water by blending sawdust, lichen, cattail fluff and fern leaves with water and a few squares of toilet paper, then help each kid as they dunked a screen into the water and pulled it out flat with all the fibers on top. They squeeze out some of the water with a sponge, and then the paper gets ironed dry and put into a little bag for the kid to take home! Here's Shaunacy at working her end of the table.

I also worked at a station where kids could make "Tree Crowns"- basically paper headbands with paper leaves and trees stapled to them. There was this little blonde girl that I helped- she wasn't strong enough to staple the leaves on by herself, so I had to pinch the stapler with a couple of fingers (while she squeezed with both hands) so that her leaves would actually get stapled on. When she put the finished product on, she lit up with such a huge smile! It made the weeks and weeks of working in the rain and cold totally worth it.

We recently found out where we're going next round, but I don't think I'm going to announce it quite yet...I know, what a terrible cliffhanger! I'm going to do some more research so I can overwhelm you all with information.  Besides, I'm having a good time at NW Trek. I'm not quite ready to be thinking about third round.

I'll leave you with a beautiful picture of Mt Rainier. Love you and miss you all!

The Evergreen State

Today, Blue 1 packed everything into the van and moved on from Silverton, OR to Eatonville, WA. I drove the last hour and a half through town on winding roads, then just six miles later we got our first glimpse of Northwest Trek. I parked the van in front of the main entrance and everyone clambered out from behind piles of sleeping bags and backpacks. Lois looked at the statue of an elk out front and whispered to me with wide eyes, "Is that how big an elk is?" Yes. Yes it is.

Our house here is beautiful. The kitchen! My god the kitchen is gorgeous! There are five sinks! Five! And we actually have bowls! The sleeping situation isn't quite as nice as the Oregon Gardens- I'll be on a cot for the next five weeks- but I'm sharing an upstairs bedroom with just one other person, so I still have a lot of privacy. The only thing is... we're right next to a red wolf breeding facility. It's just getting dark now, and you can hear them yipping and howling at each other.
Tomorrow we'll be getting a tour of the property, and I assume we'll be starting work as well. I predict a lot of blackberry removal in our future!

Our time with the Oregon Gardens went so quickly. I was just starting to learn all of the shortcuts, and now we've moved on to a new project. Anyway, everyone has been asking me for pictures of the garden and our time in Silverton, so here you go!

The Bosque- if you look closely you can tell that the water is frozen.

 

Now you don't have to look closely!

 

The wetlands.

 

The oak grove.

 

Our tracks in the thin layer of snow.

Beautiful plants near the pavilion.

 

Shaunacy and Alyssa removing blackberry vines from a bush.

 

Shaunacy trimming grass plants

Ty using a leaf blower to get the burn pile going.

The burn pile. We kept this thing going for days and there was still a huge pile of wood left to burn.

 

Joey working on the puzzle.

My birthday! A bunch of us went bowling and they got me a cake!

We got tours of the Silverton Water Treatment Plant....

...and the Wastewater Treatment Plant.

 

Alyssa looks disgusted!

 

We got to plant some trees in our last couple of days- here's one of the saplings that I planted.

 

Dylan removing scotch broom.

Goodbye Silverton!

Twelve things the AmeriLife has taught me:

1. Don't put metal dishes in the microwave. Unless you're trying to burn the house down.
2. "You're a dirty plant!" is the best insult ever.
3. You can never have too many brands of hot sauce.
4. "Clean kitchen" is an oxymoron.
5. Criminal Minds > all other cop shows.
6. On the east coast, slugbugs are called punchbuggies. (weirdoes.)
7. We learned it all from Google!
8. There will always be two jars of the same thing open.
9. Coffeepots and sauce pans are acceptable replacements for a bowl.
10. All vehicles deserve a name.
11. Fried eggs, over hard. Try them.
12. If you're trying to look hardcore, hold a pulaski.